War: It was Good Enough to Produce Three Great Works

So I was sitting around the other day sipping some Averna and began to ponder Niccolo Machiavelli, Sun Tzu and Carl von Clausewitz. Now you must all pay the price for my personal ruminations.

The Three Amigos, the Three Muskateers, the Three Wise Men, the Three Bananas of political and military theory. Between them it is very hard to measure just how many states and individuals they influenced. Some would include Caesar here but I won't for no particular reason except for the fact it would make this piece longer.

All three selected - obviously - operated in three different periods. Sun Tzu, whoever he was, came up with his ideas set in the “Art of War” during a period of civil strife in the Chou Dynasty. Interestingly, it was also a period where Buddhism and Confucianism enhanced spiritual awareness in Chinese society. Ironies, ironies.

Centuries later. Machiavelli also wrote his twin classics “The Prince” and “Arte della Guerra” during a volatile period as the city-states of Renaissance Italy were in a perpetual state of warfare*. And like China was to the East, Italy was the cultural hub of the West.

While Machiavelli and Sun Tzu operated in a state of political confusion, the conclusions they drew regarding the military and politics could not have been any different.

The Prussian officer and writer, Carl von Clausewitz, for his part, wrote during a time when German idealism and philosophy was at its apex in the 17th and 18th centuries. While his own thoughts overlap Tzu and Machiavelli, he was very much a man of his time. This led him to other ideas.

How best to describe the three? Well, Sun Tzu claimed that leaders should follow 'The Way" when engaging in war. He believed that it was essential for the military commander to know himself and his enemy. “If you know both yourself and your enemy, you will come out of one hundred battles with one hundred victories.” The best war, Sun Tzu taught, is one that is won without fighting. If you must fight it is essential to keep the fight short.

If you've ever watched a martial arts movie – and we all have - you'll get the gist of Sun Tzu. His works remain one of the most influential military books ever written.

Machiavelli was a little more sober and did not harbour any illusions about things like honour and integrity. He merely wrote what he observed. The purpose of his writings was to show the prince how to attain and maintain power at all costs.

I don’t think he would have no qualms torturing modern terrorists. Dershowitz meet Nick Machiavelli.

Machiavelli immortalized the phrases “the ends justifies the means and “it is better to be feared than loved.”

Unfortunately for man, Mac's take on human nature seems to be the more accurate one when compared with Sun Tzu.

Military historian John Keegan has a point. Maybe the dictum "War is the continuation of policy by other means" isn't accurate. After all, man has been engaging in war well before the advent of the nation-state. In this way, Clausewitz's famous dictum is somewhat lacking. Clausewitz can be excused; Empire and the nation-state were flourishing in Europe during his life.

But war is not just an intellectual or diplomatic process. It descends into the nether regions of man's darkest desires. And he knew this all too well.

Which makes reading Clausewitz, wrote the seminal “On War,” more difficult. On one side he feels the age old approaches to war were no longer valid given the unpredictability of man. On the other, Clausewitz sought to approach it in very finite ways as he designed blueprints that would ensure "things go right." in a war.

At least, we can see where Machiavelli and Sun Tzu are coming from. With Clausewitz less so. Machiavelli saw things as they were; Sun Tzu as they ought to be and Clausewitz as they might be.

Just because Clausewitz wrote as though war was predictable he knew that with man ambiguity would often have a say. Put in sportspeak, think football. No matter how perfect a play is designed man’s infallibility will always determine its success. The best you can do is manage man’s flaws. To prepare your team so as to give you the best chance of winning and to react appropriately and decisively if things go wrong.

In any event, as a result of this, the term "fog of war" is attributed to him. "Rather than comparing [war] to art we could more accurately compare it to commerce, which is also a conflict of human interests and activities; and it is still closer to politics, which in turn may be considered as a kind of commerce on a larger scale." On War, Book I, Ch. 3

According to Clausewitz, "absolute war was violence unchecked by any controls, whose aim is to utterly annihilate the enemy" and "The destruction of the enemy's military force is the leading principle of war; … The results will be greatest when combats unite themselves into one great battle," he wrote.

But Clausewitz went on to note that in reality, such abstract "pure" war did not exist, for political strategies and goals served to restrain such potentially massive carnage.

So, let me see if I follow, he thinks man is capable of carnage but puts faith in our rational thought to prevent one? Can anyone say World War I and II? The more international organizations committed to peace we build, the more we find ways to build better weapons to kill each other.

As it were, none spent too much time on the origins of war so let’s close with an Ancient thought: According to Thucydides, "Man went to war out of fear, honour and interests."

So - where does the American military establishment and tradition fall closer under?

*Should we be surprised that the art of diplomacy and the concept of balance of power politics was born in Renaissance Italy?